Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Enlightenment: The Power to Become a Child of God.

First of all, let's define enlightenment: The attainment of spiritual knowledge or insight. Verb enlighten: Explain thoroughly; make aware. Adjective enlightened: Informed, educated.
Hebrews 6:4-6. Before, i thought this passage was talking about a believer losing salvation. In reality, there's nothing to do with losing salvation, but it's about a believer not finishing the race (2 Timothy 4:7) or not receiving the crown of life (Revelation 2:10). As you probably know, there are two basic belief systems in the christian church: Arminianism and Calvinism. There are good and bad views in both of them, but when it comes to salvation, their basic belief is: Arminianism: You are responsible for your salvation (free will) and after being saved you can loose your salvation; Calvinism: God preordained your salvation or damnation and free will doesn't exist. To me, salvation is a process that can take minutes or years. There's both the Power of God and the will of man in the process, of course if God wants to save someone He will because at the end, He is sovereign. In the Bible, we can see very clear how it works (if we want to): The first step is what i call enlightenment (John 16:8); the second step is repentance (Mark 1:4); the third step is acceptance (John 1:33) and the last is the death (Luke 9:24). Unfortunately, there is a cheap salvation being offered out there, where you just say some magical words and it's done, you're saved from the wrath of God even if you'll never produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit (character of Jesus Christ). John 15:2, here Jesus is assuring that is possible to be IN Him (enlightenment, repentance and acceptance) and yet be taken away (see Post: The Tree, the Branch and the Fruit), but He doesn't mean that you are saved and will lose your salvation, He means that you never finished the process (bear fruit or die to self). The problem is that many people think just because they received gifts from God (acceptance) that they are automatically saved even if Jesus said this in Matthew 7:22-23. Two good examples of not "finishing the race", are Judas Iscariot and Saul the king, they stopped the process at acceptance and never died to self. Jesus explains to Nicodemus in John 3, the concept of being born again, of course we must die to be born again and it is spiritual. So, the best way to know if we are being saved, is to answer these questions: Am i losing my life (Luke 9:24)? Am i bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23)? Am i loving the Lord with all my heart, soul, strength and mind and my neighbor as myself (Luke 10:27)? Philippians 2:12. Look the life of Paul the Apostle, he knew everything "about" God but he didn't "know" God. When he was enlightened (Acts 9), he repented, accepted and died to self. Paul talks a lot about salvation being a process, he compares it with a race in 1 Corinthians 9:24, and he stood against those who were selling a cheap gospel, Galatians 1:8. This is the gospel the Apostles preached: 1 Corinthians 1:23-24; John 1:12. If you received Jesus Christ as your savior, you were given the right (power) to become children of God, my hope is that you "finish the race", die to self to receive eternal life!

No comments: